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Forces of hate come out to ‘hail Trump’: Burman

Video showing Donald Trump backers giving Nazi salutes is a triumph of reporting and a critique of America's politics.

In this Saturday, April 23, 2016, photo, members of the Ku Klux Klan participate in cross burnings after a "white pride" rally in rural Paulding County near Cedar Town, Ga. The racist group, and those like it, have revelled in the election of Donald Trump.
(John Bazemore / The Associated Press)

Did I forget to mention that the meeting was held in the Ronald Reagan Building, down the street from the Trump Hotel and just a few blocks from the White House?

If we thought we had seen everything in this presidential race, we were proven wrong once again. The video of the Nazi salutes was broadcast worldwide and the reaction was swift. In Berlin, a senior government official told Reuters that the video was “repulsive and worrying.” In Israel, a member of the foreign affairs committee called it “sickening and intolerable.”

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Their fear, shared by many Americans, is that white supremacists and the purveyors of hate in the United States now feel emboldened by the Trump victory, and they are right.

The so-called alt-right in the United States, which is short for “alternative-right,” is a nationalist movement that embraces white supremacist politics fuelled by racism and anti-Semitism. It was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump throughout the campaign.

Last weekend’s conference, with more than 200 delegates, was organized by the National Policy Institute, led by Richard B. Spencer.

In his closing speech, which was laced with anti-Semitic references, Spencer evoked Nazi terminology to condemn America’s mainstream media. He ended the speech with the words: “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.”

In the video, the camera was focused on a close-up of Spencer as he uttered those words, but then it pulled back to a wide shot of the applauding crowd. It was the wide shot — with several people making straight-arm Nazi salutes — that told the real story.

On Monday, the day after the video surfaced, Trump was pressured to comment, and he condemned the movement in a cursory way. Speaking to The New York Times, he said: “I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group.”

But not so fast. As Richard Cohen, president the Southern Poverty Law Center, put it: Trump has been “playing the tune of the ‘alt-right’ from the day he announced his campaign.”

With Trump calling Mexican immigrants rapists, proposing to ban Muslim immigration, talking about mass deportations and denouncing “political correctness,” Cohen said, “it’s all been music to the ears of a movement that envisions a white America — and that’s exactly the America the ‘alt-right’ wants to see.”

Another apparent consequence of the Trump election was cited by the Southern Poverty Law Center. There has been a spike in the number of hate incidents in the United States since the Nov. 8 election. One study indicated that the number is higher than the anti-Muslim hate crimes that followed 9/11 in 2001.

In the long term, perhaps the most important development has been Trump’s appointment of Stephen Bannon as senior political strategist in the White House. His desk will be down the hall from the Oval Office.

Until recently, he ran Breitbart News, an extreme right-wing website that was regarded as home by many supporters of the alt-right movement with their racist, anti-Semitic messages. Last July, Bannon described his website as “the platform for the ‘alt-right’.”

Since his appointment, there have been conflicting accounts about whether he personally embraces the hateful views that dominate his former website, but the indications are alarming. As David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, said to CNN: “You have an individual, Mr. Bannon, who’s basically creating the ideological aspects of where we are going. And ideology is the most important aspect of any government.”

Trump has been a constant surprise in this long presidential race, and he may surprise us again. He now says he “deplores and condemns” the alt-right movement, and he may be telling the truth.

But thanks to that patient video journalist last weekend, we have been reminded that, more than ever, there are dark forces at play that need to be watched.

Tony Burman is former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News. Reach him @TonyBurman or at tony.burman@gmail.com .

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